


A Small Fire

by bitboozy



Series: Domesticated [13]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Drama Llama, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst, POV Alec, Romance, relationships are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitboozy/pseuds/bitboozy
Summary: She blinks and a single tear escapes, which she very quickly wipes away with her hand. This is why he didn’t want to tell her in the first place.





	A Small Fire

_“You two should have a baby.” _

For the next week, Alec hears the words everywhere he goes. He sees them written wherever he looks.

He’s never been so thoroughly flummoxed in his life, and that’s saying something. 

He doesn’t tell Ellie. He doesn’t know how _he _feels, he can’t begin to imagine how _she _might react. Besides, it’s _Tess_, and what does _she _know about it?

Those seven days are so filled with learning curves and challenges, all to be expected when two families come together to share a home for the first time. They feel like they’re constantly putting out small fires. Nothing drastic, nothing _too _dramatic, just scrambling to make all trains run on time. Alec and Ellie haven’t had much time to enjoy the benefits of their new living situation as yet.

_“You two should have a baby.” _

What on _earth _possessed her to say it? What does it even mean?

The thought has never occurred to him before. No, really.

Well. Not that he’s _acknowledged._

He’s watched her with Fred, watched her snuggle him, kiss him, play with him, and maybe thought…no.

He’s listened to her talk about how Tom’s still her baby, her beautiful, sweet boy, and maybe thought…does she…? No.

He’s observed her with Daisy, how easy their relationship already is, how wholly they adore each other other, and maybe thought…what if…? No, no. No.

They’re too old. They’re too busy. Their relationship is still new, ever-changing in its form. He already has to share her enough, to have a baby would be like effectively giving her up and for too long a time. _No_.

But then he remembers how wistfully she’s talked about how she misses nursing her babies. And he wishes he could have been there, could have seen it, could have watched her rock a newborn Fred to sleep.

Bloody hell. He could _kill _Tess.

If it hadn’t been for the tears in her eyes when she said it, he’d have assumed it was all some elaborate psychological warfare tactic, an effort to plant a festering thought in his head until he explodes and ruins everything between them. But alas, he has rarely seen Tess look so earnest in all of twenty years.

It’s driving him mad not telling Ellie. He’s gradually gotten into the habit of telling her everything, she’s so good at drawing things out of him that he didn’t even know were there. 

Oddly enough, Ellie doesn’t seem to suspect he’s concealing any kind of torment whatsoever. So much is new for them right now, and she’s quite occupied with easing the transition, for their children especially. But as the days go on, he finds the notion seeping into his thoughts more and more, and at the most inconvenient times.

_“You two should have a baby.” _

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it comes to him while they’re making love. Far more often than he’d like, which is not at all.

Late one night, eight days since her bed became their bed, they find themselves entangled there. They’re both exhausted and would have done well just to go straight to sleep, but they’re desperate for the connection, the solace they always find when their bodies meld together this way. It’s slow and sleepy, the way he moves inside her, he keeps his mouth on hers, her tongue lazily exploring his mouth, her hands cupping his face. It’s nice when they have these nights, he thinks, when they come together to feel each other just for the sake of feeling each other. It’s not about overwhelming passion or raw animal desire, like it can be other times. It’s almost like recharging. He’s never had that kind of intimacy with anyone else.

As things slowly build in intensity, he moves his lip to her neck, burying his face in her hair as he beginst to thrust just a little faster, a little harder, motivated by her soft moans. Her fingers run up and down his bare back, these light, sensual touches that somehow drive him wild. He comes first, quietly but full-bodied, biting into her shoulder. The last thought he remembers before his thoughts dissipate into pleasurable spasms is, _what would it feel like to get her pregnant? _

Then he slips a hand between them to finish her off, and continues moving inside her until the aftershocks have passed and she’s fully sated. After a moment, he moves off of her, lying at her side. She stares at the ceiling, trying to modulate her breathing, and Alec watches a single bead of sweat travel down her skin from her chest to her waist. He props his head up on his elbow, and with his other hand traces circles on her stomach with his finger. She turns her head and kisses him softly.

“Awfully pensive this evening,” she observes, reaching out to caress his arm.

_“You two should have a baby.” _

He lays his palm flat on her stomach and then can’t take his eyes off it.

“Alec.”

She touches his cheek and turns his face to hers.

“Love,” she says, and the question is in her voice. She rarely has to articulate it anymore.

He sighs. “You’ll have to forgive me for this,” he says first, and she pulls her hand away. His thumb travels back and forth across her belly button. “D’you ever think you might want more children?”

Her eyes widen bigger than he’s ever seen them and her eyebrows are narrowed in alarm. “Do _you_?!”

He sighs again, and rubs his temple. “I dunno.”

She sits up a bit, back against the headboard. He slides back as well, propping up pillows to lean on so he can be level with her.

“Where’s this coming from?”

He groans, annoyed with himself, and leans his forehead against her chest. “Sorry.”

“How long have you been thinking about it?” He lifts his head, and can see her sifting through moments from the last week in her mind.

“Ach, bloody Tess,” he moans. “Something she said last weekend.”

_“Tess_?!”

“Aye, before she left she said…” He sighs, preparing himself to say it out loud since the first time he heard her say it. “ ‘You two should have a baby.’”

Ellie’s mouth opens and closes twice before she says anything. “_Tess _said?” She pinches the bridge of her nose, working through her confusion. “She was being facetious, then. Taking the piss at our expense.”

“No,” he replies, though part of him wishes that were true. “She meant it actually. Had tears in her eyes.”

“Christ,” Ellie curses. “I wonder what in god’s name possessed her…”

“Think she quite surprised herself, to be honest.”

Ellie sighs, then searches his face. She pushes a little hair out of his eyes. “You’ve been thinking about this all week, have you?”

His expression betrays that he has. 

She softens. “You should have told me." 

“Bad enough I had to deal with it, didn’t want to pass it on to you,” he explains grumpily.

“So when we’ve shagged you’ve just been thinking, ‘christ, I hope that 99.9% success rate is accurate.’” He can see she wants to laugh, but appreciates that she doesn’t.

“Well not _just_,” he replies, with a half-smile. “There’s also ‘christ, she’s so bloody sexy’ and ‘christ, I want to shag her senseless.’”

She does laugh now, and kisses him. “So what’s bothering you then? The idea itself, or that it came from Tess.”

“I…” He doesn’t know quite what to say, so he just reaches out and runs the side of his hand along her collarbone, then down her chest, to the valley between her breasts.

“That’s quite nice and all, but it doesn’t tell me much, does it?”

He sighs heavily, and he wishes there was a language wherein he could communicate entirely in sighs. “El.”

She finds his hand where it rests on her body and squeezes it. “What, love.” Then her eyes widen again as she watches him struggle for words. “Do you want a baby?!” The question comes out like a gasp.

“I don’t _know._” And he really doesn’t.

“You _might _want a baby then.”

He turns away just enough so that his eyes don’t have to meet hers. “I…might.”

She turns away too, and looks straight ahead, fully shell-shocked.

“I think…” He ventures, seeing the look on her face. “That it’s not so much that I might want a baby, generally. And more that I might want a baby with _you_.”

Her eyes _immediately _start to glisten with moisture. She blinks and a single tear escapes, which she very quickly wipes away with her hand. This is why he didn’t want to tell her in the first place.

“Let’s forget it, then, shall we?” He suggests. “Let’s just go back to the afterglow.” He reaches for her then, to pull her into his arms and just feel her warmth against him until they both fall asleep. But she’s immovable.

“We can’t,” she says, and it looks like it’s breaking her heart.

She looks at him again, and another tear falls. This time he wipes it away himself. “I’m sorry, El. I didn’t mean to…” He falters. “'M sorry.”

Ellie turns onto her side to face him, and they both snuggle into their pillows, each trying to decode the other’s expression. He pulls the covers up around them without taking his eyes away from hers.

“Forgive me, love,” he says quietly. 

“Nothing to forgive,” she insists, though she’s clearly troubled.

A moment passes in silence, but neither moves. Then he has to say it.

“I take it you…_don’t _want a baby, then.”

It’s almost imperceptible, but she shakes her head, no.

“’S all right,” Alec whispers, tucking her hair behind her cheek, hating that he’s now passed his torment on to her.

She grabs onto the hand at the side of her face. “I love you very much.”

He smiles a bit faintly, but genuine. “I love _you_.”

She moves into his arms, resting her head on his chest and tightening an arm around his waist. He loves that she loves listening to his heart beat.

Well, that’s that done, he thinks. No need to agonize anymore. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t quite know what he wants, she knows what _she _wants. Or doesn’t want. 

This should be of comfort to him. 

But, somehow, it isn’t.

_“You two should have a baby.” _

***

**Author's Note:**

> Oof, is today the day you all decide you're finally tired of these? Is tomorrow? Who knows?
> 
> I was SO CLOSE to not posting today and then Alec had a whole bunch of shit to say.


End file.
